Home › The Principles of Cookery › Syllabubs, Large
Syllabubs, Large
Put half a pound of powdered white sugar into a bowl, and strain upon it the juice of two lemons. Add the grated rind of one lemon, a glassful of Madeira, a glassful of sweet wine, a little powdered cinnamon, and as much ratafia as will flavour the mixture pleasantly. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Add a quart of cream, and whisk the preparation to a froth. Lay some macaroons in the bottom of a dish. As the froth rises pile it upon the biscuits. Keep it in a cool place. This syllabub ought to be made a couple of days before it is wanted.
A whipped, or "everlasting," syllabub: acid and alcohol stabilise the cream so the froth holds for days rather than collapsing in an hour. Two details govern the result — a very cold, high-fat cream, and skimming the froth off in stages rather than whipping the whole bowl stiff.
- Scale and yieldHalf a pound of sugar to a quart of cream is roughly 1 cup sugar to 4 cups (about 950 ml) heavy cream. This fills a large glass bowl and should serve a dozen or more in small glasses; the sweetness is period-appropriate, and reducing it somewhat is possible, though sugar helps hold the froth as well as sweeten it.
- "A glassful"A wine glass in Victorian cookery books is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz (60 ml), though the term is genuinely loose and some writers meant up to 4 fl oz. Two ounces each of Madeira and sweet wine is a safe reading; more alcohol gives more flavour but a looser froth.
- The sweet wine"Sweet wine" here means a dessert wine of the sherry, Marsala or Muscat type, not a sweetened table wine. Cream sherry works well alongside the Madeira.
- RatafiaRatafia was an almond- or peach-kernel-flavoured cordial. A tablespoon or two of amaretto, or a scant quarter-teaspoon of almond extract, gives the same note. Do not use bitter almond oil sold for non-food use.
- The creamUse heavy or double cream at 36 per cent fat or above, straight from the refrigerator, with a chilled bowl. Ultra-pasteurised cream whips more slowly and holds less air; standard pasteurised is better if you can get it.
- Whisking and skimming"As the froth rises pile it upon the biscuits" is the working instruction. Whisk steadily, lift off the risen foam with a skimmer or slotted spoon onto the macaroons, and keep whisking what remains. Beating the whole quantity to stiff peaks in one go gives a heavy, buttery result and the liquid will weep out.
- The biscuitsMacaroons here are the small almond kind — Italian amaretti or the tiny ratafia biscuits — not coconut macaroons. They soften into the base as the syllabub stands.
- Making it aheadTwo days is realistic for this style, but keep it covered in the refrigerator rather than a Victorian larder. Any liquid that separates and settles beneath the froth is normal and was considered part of the dish.
Syllabub is one of the oldest surviving English party dishes, recorded from the sixteenth century, and the origin of the name is unsettled — it is often linked to "bub" as slang for a bubbling drink, with the first syllable variously explained. The earliest versions were drinks: sweetened, spiced wine or cider in a bowl into which milk was poured from a height, or, in the much-repeated country instruction, milked directly from the cow, so the impact raised a curd on top and left a boozy whey below. By the seventeenth century cooks had learned that whipping cream with citrus juice and fortified wine produced a froth stable enough to be spooned into glasses and kept — the "everlasting" or "solid" syllabub, of which this is an example. Scaled up to a quart of cream and piled on macaroons in a single large dish, it reflects a taste for a make-ahead sweet that could stand on a supper table through a long evening.